Pablo Picasso, Attributed: Bust de Femme

Pablo Picasso, Attributed: Bust de Femme
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)Manner of/ Attributed: Bust de Femme, 1.9.67. Watercolor and pastel on cold pressed paper mounted to mat board. Signed and dated above. Illegible pencil marks verso (Possibly in Dutch).

The following background was prepared by the item's consignor:
There remains scholarly debate on the number of artworks Picasso produced in his lifetime. Estimates range from 40,000 to over 100,000+ total original pieces. These prodigious numbers were achievable for two major reasons. Picasso created within multiple mediums virtually constantly, and he lived to be 91 years of age. Whatever the actual number may be, Pablo Picasso is a recognized giant in the artistic pantheon even though he stood 5 feet, 4 inches tall.

Picasso was also known to feverishly develop and refine themes often incorporating revolving characters from history and his own imaginative mythologies executing multiple instances in a singular day to satisfy his creative vision and expressive narrative. This was especially true of his sketching and works on paper. Picasso would denote such multiples normally by assigning a roman numeral that followed his European dating convention. For example, a sketch or drawing he did on April 5th 1965 would be notated ‘5.4.65' and a third such effort later the same day would be dated ‘5.4.65 III'. Oftentimes Picasso would return to pieces he had ‘finished' days or months before to change or add to the piece as he saw fit or as inspiration or critical review moved him. In such cases Picasso would add additional days to the piece, sometimes as a singular number, and sometimes by adding an additional day, month, year depending on how intensive the supplements to the original were. It is not uncommon to see instances whereby works are dated '6.12.61.9' or some such series of numbers. In this example, Picasso would have created the piece on December 6th 1961, returning to work on it three days later on December 9th.

Picasso almost always signed his name to work that he gifted or intended to sell. Pieces he kept for himself were largely unsigned. Also, like film director Alfred Hitchcock, Picasso often makes appearances in his own work most usually as a short character, frequently bald, with a prominent nose or belly standing in the wings of his pages. When questioned about this phenomenon Picasso stated multiple times that "wherever there was a naked woman…there was somebody there to watch her."

23 x 14.5 inches framed; 19.5 x 11.5 inches paper.

Possibly estate of David Douglas Duncan, Kansas City, Missouri; Donna Payne Jefferson County, Arkansas; Private Connecticut collection ; Acquired from above in a private sale, 2004, by the current owner, A California Gentleman.